Arnold Miller

Arnold Ray Miller (April 25, 1923 – July 12, 1985) was a miner and labor activist who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), AFL–CIO, from 1972 to 1979. Winning as a reform candidate, he gained positive changes for the miners, including compensation for black lung disease. He had difficulty dealing with growing internal union opposition. His last two years as president were particularly tumultuous and he suffered two heart attacks, finally resigning in November 1979 with the title of "president emeritus for life".

Early life and mining career Miller was born in 1923 in Leewood, West Virginia, a small town in the Cabin Creek area east of Charleston. His mother was the former Lula Burgess Hoy. Miller's father, George, had gone to work in the coal mines at the age of 9 in Bell County, Kentucky. At the age of 14, George Miller was already an activist in the union and was forced to leave Kentucky by thugs employed by the mine owners.

When the mine owners broke the UMWA locals in the Cabin Creek area in 1921, Miller's father and maternal grandfather were blacklisted and unable to find work. Although Miller's mother was pregnant, his father George took a job in Fayette County working for the Gauley Mountain Coal Company (where he became president of the local miners' union). The strain of distance proved too much on the marriage and Miller's parents divorced.

Stymied by his union, late in 1968 Miller organized other ill miners into the West Virginia Black Lung Association. They won introduction of a black-lung bill in the West Virginia state legislature. When Miller led other miners, their families and supporters on a march on the state capitol, Boyle sent legislators a telegram advising them (as Miller put it) "not to worry about those so-and-so miners."

Race for presidency of UMWA Yablonski murder

The United Mine Workers was in turmoil by this time. President W. A. Boyle was autocratic and bullying, and not well liked. From the beginning of his administration, Boyle faced significant opposition from rank-and-file miners and UMWA leaders. Miners' attitudes about their union had also changed. Miners wanted greater democracy and more local autonomy for their local unions. There was a widespread belief that Boyle was more concerned with protecting mine owners' interests than those of his members. Grievances filed by the union often took months — sometimes years — to resolve, lending credence to the critics' claim. Wildcat strikes occurred as local unions, despairing of UMWA assistance, sought to resolve local disputes with walkouts.

In 1969, Joseph "Jock" Yablonski challenged Boyle for the presidency of UMWA. In an election widely seen as corrupt, Boyle beat Yablonski in the election held on December 9 by a margin of nearly two-to-one (80,577 to 46,073). Yablonski conceded the election, but on December 18, 1969, asked the United States Department of Labor (DOL) to investigate the election for fraud. He also filed five civil suits against the union on charges related to the election.

On December 31, 1969, three hitmen shot Yablonski, his wife, Margaret, and his 25-year-old daughter, Charlotte, as they slept in the family home in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. The bodies were discovered on January 5, 1970. The killings had been ordered by Boyle, and the hitmen had been paid $20,000 in embezzled union funds for the job.

A few hours after the funeral, two of Yablonski's sons and several of the miners who had supported Yablonski met in the basement of the church where the service was held. They met with attorney Joseph Rauh and drew up plans for a reform caucus within the United Mine Workers.

Miners for Democracy Miners for Democracy (MFD) formed in April 1970 while the DOL investigation was underway. Its members included most of the miners who belonged to the West Virginia Black Lung Association and many of Yablonski's supporters and campaign staff. MFD's support was strongest in southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and panhandle and northern West Virginia, but MFD supporters existed in nearly all affiliates. The chief organizers of Miners for Democracy included Yablonski's sons, Ken and Joseph (known as "Chip") Yablonski, both labor attorneys, and Trbovich and others. Initially, the group's sole purpose was to keep the DOL investigation of the Mine Workers alive.

DOL filed suit in federal court in 1971 to overturn the 1969 UMWA election. As the case progressed, MFD turned its focus toward building a union-wide political organization capable of contesting any new election. A number of union members were seen as potential MFD candidates, including Miller, Trbovich and miner Elijah Wood.

On May 1, 1972, Judge William Bryant threw out the results of the 1969 UMWA international union elections. Bryant scheduled a new election to be held over the first eight days of December 1972. Additionally, Bryant agreed that DOL should oversee the election, to ensure fairness.

Over the weekend of May 26 to May 28, 1972, 800 MFD delegates from 16 UMWA districts gathered in Wheeling, West Virginia. Miller and Trbovich both sought the group's endorsement for president, with Trbovich the leading candidate going into the convention. But by Sunday, Miller had been elected MFD's presidential candidate, receiving 70.9 votes out of to Trbovich's 57.1 votes. As a consolation, Trbovich was elected the group's vice presidential nominee, receiving 84.1 votes. Harold Patrick, national co-chairman of MFD, received 76.4 votes to win the secretary-treasurer nod.

Miller's victory over Trbovich was something of a surprise. Many believed the delegates had been swayed UMWA District 17 president Jack Perry. Perry had been a founding member of the Logan County Black Lung Association. According to Cecil Roberts, then an MFD supporter and now president of UMWA, "...Arnold Miller's election as UMWA president in 1972 was largely attributable to Jack's impassioned lobbying of MFD convention delegates to support Miller." Many delegates felt Miller was more likely to win any election than Trbovich. Many miners held discriminatory views toward people of Eastern European descent like Trbovich, while others felt he was too militant. Miller, meanwhile, already had a strong base in the black-lung movement.

On December 22, 1972, the Labor Department certified Miller as UMWA's next president. The vote was 70,373 for Miller and 56,334 for Boyle.

Arnold Miller was the first candidate to defeat an incumbent president in UMWA history, and the first native West Virginian to lead the union.

First presidential administration Weakness of leadership Miller proved to be a weak president. "Whoever talked to him last had his ear," one staffer said. He was markedly indecisive, changing his mind repeatedly and putting off decisions. Eventually, the reform movement he led began to stall. "He was not an exceptionally good United Mine Workers President..."

Collapse of the reform movement As Miller's problems mounted, his reform program collapsed. He began sacrificing additional reform proposals to ensure the success of the few which had already been implemented. He openly fought with Yablonski supporters, and became suspicious of the young intellectuals on his staff as well. He also became somewhat paranoid about his enemies: He sold his home in D.C. and moved to a small, secure apartment in Arlington, Virginia, kept a baseball bat by his desk, and carried a Smith & Wesson .38 handgun to local union meetings. His leadership style became increasingly autocratic, and he adopted the trappings of power (for example, like Boyle, he began using a huge limousine) and fired staff frequently. In retaliation, Miller took away Trbovich's supervision of the union's safety division. UMWA struck on November 12, 1974. A tentative agreement was rejected twice by UMWA's bargaining council (once prior to and once during the strike). Finally the government threatened to bring a Taft-Hartley injunction against the union to force the miners back to work. A settlement was reached on December 10.

The 1974 agreement was the richest contract in UMW history. But the membership's unhappiness with the new collective bargaining agreement led to a continuing wave of wildcat strikes, and significantly slowed the union's organizing growth.

Continuing troubles In 1975, Miller fired John Sulka, the union's executive safety director. The cause of his termination was disagreement over how strongly the union should continue to pressure employers on safety. Miller felt miners were not giving his reforms a chance to work, while Sulka wished to continue to move forward. Later that year, Chip Yablonski resigned as general counsel.

Miller became increasingly defensive. He added security at union headquarters, and demanded that all staff travel plans be cleared through him so he could detect plotting. When he suspected one of his secretaries of plotting with a political challenger, he had the door to her office removed.

Trbovich, too, continued to attack Miller. In early June, 1974, Trbovich circulated a letter among UMWA's board of directors accusing Miller — and, to a lesser degree, Patrick — of gross financial mismanagement. He accused Miller of overspending and paying raises to staff who contributed little to the union's mission, and reiterated charges that Miller had let the union fall into "radical" hands. Miller denied the charges, and counter-attacked. He accused Trbovich of keeping a public relations consultant on the payroll for six weeks longer than necessary, forcing Miller to fire her. The board's meeting turned into a shouting match between Miller and Trbovich. By that time, Trbovich had the support of 16 of the members on the board and an opposition slate was forming to challenge Miller in the 1977 presidential election.

The ongoing internal problems continued to affect UMWA organizing. In late 1976, the union lost an organizing drive in Bell County, Kentucky, because of the political fractiousness.

Final term Re-election By the end of 1977, Miller's popularity had significantly waned. Some rank-and-file miners had signed a petition calling for his resignation.

Initially, Miller's candidacy was somewhat conservative. He focused his campaign on his record of ending corruption, enhancing mine safety and winning sizeable pay increases. But in order to shore up support during the campaign, Miller agreed to seek additional democratic reforms advocated by militant district leaders. One reform would have given local unions the right to strike on their own.

Elected as vice president was Sam Church, a former Boyle supporter and local president who became a field representative and then international representative in the Miller administration. When Church punched a former UMWA staffer in a dispute over a leak to the press, Miller asked Church to be his running-mate.

A tentative agreement was reached February 6, 1978, which imposed penalties for wildcat strikes and chronic absenteeism, turned the union's health and pension plans over to the employers, forced workers to pay part of their health insurance premiums, and instituted a bonus system for productivity increases.

The union's bargaining council rejected the tentative agreement on February 12. The UMWA membership rejected the tentative contract by a margin of 2 to 1.

On March 6, President Jimmy Carter invoked the national emergency provision of the Taft–Hartley Act and a federal district court issued a temporary injunction ordering the miners back to work on March 9. Once more, Miller and his leadership worked hard to convince members that the contract was a good one. That year, Richard Trumka defeated Sam Church for the presidency of the Mine Workers, becoming the second person to defeat an incumbent UMWA president.

Miller's health continued to deteriorate. He collapsed in May 1985 and entered a coma. Miller died on July 12, 1985, in Charleston, West Virginia. His political nemesis, Tony Boyle, had died in prison six weeks earlier, on May 31.

Noting Miller's passing, UMWA president Richard Trumka cited Miller's commitment to democracy and the health of miners as a lasting legacy. "Possibly Miller's greatest achievements were the internal reforms he instituted within our union and the historic breakthrough he led in the area of black lung legislation," Trumka said. Trumka observed that Miller had achieved these goals "in the face of what seemed, at times, overwhelming odds."